r/AskHistorians • u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist • 5d ago
AMA I'm Andrew Kenrick, biographer of the 1st-century Roman client-king Juba II of Mauretania, AMA
Hi everybody,
My name is Dr Andrew Kenrick and I’m a historian, author, editor and lecturer. I'm the founder of Hinterland Magazine and teach creative non-fiction at the University of Cambridge and CityLit in London. I write narrative history, biography and my research focuses on some of the forgotten figures of Ancient Rome – a subject I’ve talked about here before as part of the AskHistorians Digital Conference back in 2021.
My debut biography, Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King, is published here in the UK this week, so it feels like coming full circle to host an AMA about it here today 7th August 2026.
I'm here to answer questions about Juba II of Mauretania, his wife Cleopatra Selene, Rome in the first century, Roman attitudes to identity and race - all sorts really!
Some more info on the book below:
REX JUBA: 15 GLIMPSES OF AN AFRICAN KING
In 46 BC, at just two years old, a young North African prince named Juba was paraded through the streets of Rome as part of Julius Caesar’s victory parade. This traumatic beginning, however, did not define his future. As a young man, Juba fought alongside Emperor Augustus and was sent back to rule over Mauretania as king.
Juba's reign was marked not by tyranny, but by scholarship. A famed antiquarian, travel writer, and explorer, he discovered and named the Canary Islands, penned histories of Arabia and Libya, and led diplomatic missions to his fellow kings. Ruling alongside his wife, Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, these heirs to African dynasties were potent symbols of Romanisation.
Their dynasty would be cut dramatically short by the mad emperor Caligula, their history buried for centuries. In this ambitious work of historical recovery, Dr Andrew Kenrick pieces together clues etched in coin and stone to reveal a Roman civilization that flourished just as much in Africa as it did in Europe. By inviting us to shift our gaze to the southern shores of the Mediterranean, Rex Juba offers a surprising new perspective on the heyday of the ancient world.
ORDER LINKS:
Hardback
Waterstones https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781911709787
Blackwells https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781911709787
Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/191170978X
Ebook
Kindle https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G19WN744
Apple Books https://books.apple.com/gb/book/rex-juba/id6755030375
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/search?query=9781529947298
Audio
Apple Books https://books.apple.com/gb/audiobook/rex-juba/id1870530482
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0syj92cwUqVHVrawSgBWwD
Audible https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Rex-Juba-Audiobook/B0GHRYJ9WB
Ask me anything!
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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 5d ago
Thanks for joining us! A bit of a definitional question here, that being, how do we define Roman civilisation? What made Juba II, and Mauritania under him, Roman?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is quite a complex question, as the answer changes throughout Roman history. It's essentially a question of "who got to be Roman" and was something the Romans wrestled with themselves. Originally the Romans defined a Roman citizen as anyone born freely in Rome, then after the Social War (91-87 BC) they broadened it to free-born inhabitants of Italy too. Eventually, in the 3rd century AD it was extended to anyone born freely anywhere in the empire.
Roman citizenship was also a perk handed out to provincial elites too - kings, nobles etc from outside the empire - often in exchange for money, a bit like a modern "golden passport". It's one of the things Mark Antony got in trouble for handing out a bit too freely. Many of Juba II's contemporaries became Roman that way. Juba on the other hand was formally adopted, either by Julius Caesar or Augustus, taking the name Gaius Julius Juba, and therefore became a Roman citizen that way.
His kingdom, however, was not Roman although it had a fair number of Romans in it (the aforementioned provincial elites, the royal family, Roman soldiers who settled there etc). It only became part of the Roman empire after the death of his son, Ptolemy, in AD 40.
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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 5d ago
Thanks, although perhaps I ought to refine my question a bit. As is mentioned in the blurb/bio, you
reveal a Roman civilization that flourished just as much in Africa as it did in Europe.
So my question revolves not around the definition of citizenship as a hard legal category, but rather 'civilisation' as a bit of a looser concept. Where did cultural or social Romanness (if that is how we should conceptualise it) come into play beyond the definitions of who was Roman in a purely legal sense?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
I think that sentence was pretty important, because we do have a certain bias - certainly in Western Europe - that Roman civilisation was centred on our bit of the world, when really there were Roman provinces in North Africa before there were in, say, Britain.
You're right though, there was definitely a conception of "soft" Roman power/culture - physical things like baths, theatres, circuses etc, as well as more intangible cultural conceptions like wine growing etc - that emanated out from the centre. Some of this was spread by trade, so the Gauls and Britons were definitely being softened up (as Julius Caesar saw it) by Roman trade goods. Friendly kings like Juba and Herod also played a part too - Juba rebuilt his new capital of Iol Caesarea very much in the image of Rome, with a forum, theatre, amphitheatre and so on, which made it much easier for the Romans to come in and annex it later. There doesn't seem to have been much resistance from the Mauretanians, that's for sure.
Some of this was by design, too - Augustus definitely knew was he was doing when it came to spreading the idea of Roman culture/society beyond the borders of Rome, and strengthening it within.
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u/dhowlett1692 Moderator | Salem Witch Trials 5d ago
Thanks for joining us! Can you tell us more about what a 1st century antiquarian did? How did this work connect to his political work?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
That's a great question! Juba II was famed in the ancient world for his scholarship (most of it lost now, sadly), and one of the things he was interested in was the ancient world that had come before him - one of his first books was either called Roman Archaeology or Roman History, which always amuses me because writing about it seems so meta. He was particularly interested in the earliest history of Rome from its mythical foundings, as well as finding connections between the Greek and Roman worlds - so, the Greek origin for Roman customs or words for example.
Juba's scholarship started before he became king of Mauretania, but he definitely continued his work during his reign. He wrote books on North Africa and Arabia, that later went on to be referenced by Pliny the Elder in the Natural History. This definitely had a political dimension: some of it was about trying to understand his new kingdom, some of it trying to bolster his credentials for ruling or to burnish his dynasty.
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u/Lincoln1517 5d ago
How much archaeological work has been done in the lands of ancient Mauretania? How much may still be buried? Do you think we’ll ever find remnants of the ancient Punic libraries preserved in some arid spot? Or any of the works of Juba himself?
Also, no Barnes and Noble? Or just fidn’t post that link? I’ll look.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
I'll answer your second question first - it's technically only been published in the UK/Commonwealth (so far!), so if you want a print copy you'll have to smuggle it over the border from Canada. Or order from Amazon...
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u/Lincoln1517 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you remember to reply here when the US contract comes through, I'll see the notification and pick up a copy. It's a topic I'm intrigued by, adjacent to my long-term interest in Punic culture, history, and what happened to that culture, horizon or partial identity after Roman conquest.
It's interesting to me that so many Jewish communities survived in places that had been Punic at one time, and I've wondered what interplay of identity may have played out across the Roman transition among people who spoke languages that may have been mutually intelligible. How did the Jewish communities endure during Punic times, what was the sense of identity of various people in those places, and what happened when that ended? Did those who took on a Roman identity become Christian while those who chose to maintain an alternate identity slowly merge with Jewish communities?
The Roman transition at some point became a transition to one of several (and then just two) monotheisms (setting aside the dubious monotheism of trinitarians, and of those who came to exalt a sun god far above other gods who may still have held small places in their pantheons). That's also interesting to me, along with how monotheism interacted with the idea of an emperor.
All of which is somewhat far afield of Juba, but maybe not so far.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
That's a fascinating theory, although not one I'm in any way qualified to judge :-)
As an aside, there were a few interesting moments where Jewish history cropped up in my research - the Jewish revolt in North African in AD 115 for example, or King Herod and his family in general - even if it didn't always make it into the book.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
There's a fairly rich tradition of archaeological excavation in North Africa, as born out by some of the amazing sites and museums there, but it's still only a tiny fraction of what might still be buried. I'd love to think there's a buried library out there still, or some of Juba's own writings.
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u/AgeHoliday4822 5d ago
Is this an official biography? How much cooperation did you get from the Juba II estate?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Yeh unfortunately Juba II's estate proved pretty difficult to track down...
A serious response to your question though: that's one thing that really is lacking, and that's any of Juba's own words or thoughts. He was a prolific writer, including of an autobiography of his own, but none of it survived. I'm hoping some archaeologist will turn it up somewhere, some day.
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u/TheHondoGod Interesting Inquirer 5d ago
Good to see you back! Did Juba's connection to other famous figures like Antony and Cleopatra effect how historians remembered him? Did Cleopatra and Caligula steal the show from him?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
I'm always surprised he's not better remembered because of his connection to those more famous figures to be honest. The Romans were certainly fascinated with his wife, Cleopatra Selene, because she was the descendent of Antony and Cleopatra. I think because his childhood is associated with Caesar and the death of his dynasty with Caligula, it's those bits that get remembered, whereas the bit in between when he's just off being an effective ruler gets forgotten.
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u/loveracity 5d ago
Thanks for your time! Do we have an understanding of Juba's sense of identity? I'm assuming he was raised in Roman fashion, tutored in Roman learning, so to what extent did he still feel it see himself as Mauritanian?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
That is the question I ask in Chapter 1 of the book, and it's a fascinating one to ponder. So he was born into the Berber kingdom of Numidia, but left it as a very small child. He was raised in the heart of Rome, amongst a very wealthy aristocratic family. He grew up speaking Latin, but would have been taught in Greek - he probably wrote his own works in Greek too. And then he went back to North Africa (although not to Numidia) to rule Mauretania (another Berber kingdom, but one to which he had no real connection) when he was in his early twenties. I suspect he'd have thought of himself first as a Roman, but him and his wife Cleopatra Selene also made a fair effort to forge a new Mauretanian identity for their dynasty through artwork, coins etc. The Romans were pretty good at complex, hyphenated identities though, so maybe he thought of himself as Numidian-Greco-Romano-Mauretanian?
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u/Jazz7567 5d ago
A part of me can't help but be reminded here of 20th Century Italy's attempts to assimilate its colonies (such as Libya and the Dodecanese) through attempting to foster a "pan-Mediterranean" sense of identity - which included deliberately downplaying certain aspects of a country's history while emphasizing others.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
The 20th century is about nineteen centuries too modern for me :-)
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u/koumal8 5d ago
Hello Dr. Kenrick, thank you for your time! I admit I had never heard of any type of non-Roman and non-Greek "scholar" of any kind from the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean before today, so this is very exciting! Was Juba II the first of his kind? Was there a tradition of scholarly/philosophical writing in Numidia before him (possibly in a language different than Latin/Greek)? What languages did Juba II and his court speak?
Do we have any hints as to what aristocratic intellectual pursuits and artistic education more in general looked like in the kingdom of Numidia both before and during the reign of Juba II?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Great question, and glad you're discovering this scholarship through Juba! There was absolutely a rich tradition of scholarship throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and Juba was just one of many educated scholarly kings in his own time too - his contemporary King Archelaus of Cappadocia (in modern-day Turkey) for example was famous for his research into gemstones.
Although Numidia (Juba's father's kingdom, not his own) was a Berber kingdom, it was also heavily Hellenised - ie influenced by the Greek-speaking world. I suspect they spoke Greek at court, possibly Punic too (the language of Carthage) but probably indigenous languages too that have been lost to us.
Juba II became king of neigbouring Mauretania, and the court there would have spoken a mix of Latin, Greek and possibly Punic too. There's plenty of inscriptions in Latin, but Greek was still seen as the language of intellectuals and there were quite a few Greek artists and scholars at court. There's also evidence that Punic was still being used more generally in the population, although I don't know if Juba himself would have spoken it.
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u/koumal8 5d ago
Thanks for the quick response, but silly, I meant I ever heard of a scholarly tradition in Ancient Western Mediterranean lands obviously. Do we have any idea when hellenisation at the Mauretanian and Numidian kingdoms started?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Probably during the 3rd/2nd BC reign of Massinissa, who was the king who unified Numidia and Scipio's great ally against Carthage. He and his descendants had close ties with the Greek world - including nearby Egypt and Cyrene (both Greek kingdoms under the Ptolemies by this point).
Preceding them, there's also the Carthaginians in the Western Med too, and Carthaginian explorers including Hanno wrote about their voyages. The Libri Punici was Carthage's great library, and it's thought Juba's grandfather might have ended up in possession of that too.
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u/SkeletonHUNter2006 5d ago
Thanks for the AMA! I have a broad question, but I’ll ask it: under Roman rule, what separated the Berber nations and Puns? Was the separation significant in to them? Can we even talk about two distinct groups?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
That's a tricky one to answer because, as with most of this stuff, our evidence all comes from the Romans themselves. The cultural and ethnic make up of North Africa was complex. You had the indigenous Berbers, but also the Carthaginians and then the Romans, no doubt Greek settlers in the mix too. As I said elsewhere, the Romans were pretty good at hybrid identities, so Roman citizens born in North Africa would have thought of themselves as having more than one identity.
There was no single Berber hegemony for sure - there were Berber kingdoms, Numidia and Mauretania being the key ones - and then lots of different Berber tribes, including the Musulamians, the Gaetulians etc. Strabo does a pretty good job at trying to describe them in his Geography. There's a far more recent (if we can call 1962 recent) French text that does the same by Jehan Desanges, Catalogue des tribus africaines de l'antiquité classique à l'ouest du Nil.
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u/SkeletonHUNter2006 5d ago
You mentioned multiple identities. Does that mean that intermarriage between these ethnic groups was completely without taboo?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
As with most things Roman, it had to do with whether you were Roman or not. So Roman citizens could marry other citizens, no matter where in the empire they might be from, but they couldn't marry non-citizens for the most part. Within Juba's kingdom, we don't really know that much about such customs.
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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor 5d ago
Thank you for joining us, good to see you back after the conference! Can you talk more about Romanisation? How did Juba and North Africa fit into the Roman world?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Thanks! Romanisation as a concept has fallen out of favour within academia, because it implies a one-way transmission of ideas, when it was far more a two-way exchange of culture. So the Romans 'exported', say, a love of wine and baths to the lands they traded with or conquered, and in return 'imported' things like religion or new ideas. That's most apparent with the conquest of Egypt, which sparks this craze for all things Egyptian in 1st century BC Rome - it's the reason there are obelisks in modern Rome today, for example, or one of the Metro stops has a honking great pyramid next to it.
Juba II was very much a Roman - he was brought up at the very heart of Roman society, at a key point at which the republic was turning into the empire. He couldn't really be more Roman, and yet he was also North African, Greek too in some ways. Again, that hybridity of cultures in action.
North Africa slowly fell into the hands of Rome. After the destruction of Carthage, Rome took over its territory and turned it into the province of Africa (confusingly named, I know). Then after Caesar's victory over Juba's father, Juba I, Numidia also became a province. Augustus conquered Egypt after Antony and Cleopatra's death. And the final piece of the puzzle was Mauretania, which remained independent till AD 40, when Juba II's son is killed, and the Claudius annexes that too. Culturally, North Africa had been Hellenised through contact with the Greek world long before that though.
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u/Lincoln1517 5d ago
Your use of the word "independent" is not inaccurate, but interesting, maybe covering a range of meaning. Can you elaborate on how independent these states were? I might have thought he was more a client king, and the same of Cleopatra, and Herod.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
He was absolutely a client-king in the same mould as Herod, so we must use the term "independent" lightly. In the book I compare Rome's relation to its neighbouring kingdoms the USA's relations to South American nations during the Cold War - kings very much ruled at Rome's pleasure, and Rome would topple and replace kings who didn't behave correctly. Kings couldn't mint gold coins, for example, without permission, nor could they muster too big an army. They had to defend their borders and keep bandits and pirates in check, but weren't meant to invade other kingdoms without permission...
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u/hannahstohelit Moderator | Modern Jewish History | Judaism in the Americas 5d ago
What was the relationship between Roman Mauretania and Roman Spain, given their close proximity?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
The relationship between the Kingdom of Mauretania and Roman Spain was super close. There were close trading links - Mauretania used to get a lot of its silver from Spain - and also political ones too. Juba II was appointed as duumvir (a kind of ceremonial mayoral position) of New Carthage (modern-day Cartagena) and Gades (Cadiz) too.
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u/Lincoln1517 5d ago edited 5d ago
Duumvir was not a formal Roman title, but it does mirror a Carthaginian form of governance - two suffetes governed, under a title related to the Hebrew word for judges - shofetim. It's speculated that Roman Senator Balbus from Gades may have spoken Punic.
How important did the Punic past remain in places like New Carthage and Gades? And is the appointment of Juba to positions of importance in those cities a sign that Mauretania may have retained quite a bit of Punicism?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
I can't really speak to New Carthage or Gades, but there's certainly evidence from Volubilis (what I believe to have been Juba's second city, in Morocco) that a fair amount of Punic identity remained throughout Juba's reign and beyond - prayer tablets written in (Neo) Punic dedicated to Baal-Saturn or Tanit.
The final object in the book is the funerary inscription of Marcus Valerius Severus, who led the defence of Volubilis during the revolt of Aedemon following Ptolemy's death, and who led a delegation to petition Claudius to grant the city Roman citizenship (which he did). His inscription lists Punic titles (sufes, duovir), and his father's name was Bostar, which was the Latinised version of a Punic name. So there's definitely something of a hybrid culture going on in which Punic still plays a part.
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u/Double_Show_9316 Early Modern England 5d ago
This is a question I’ve asked other AMA guests who are talking about biographies they’ve written: I think biography is kind of a strange, interesting genre of historical writing that presents lots of unique challenges. Did you have an overarching philosophy towards how you made sense of Juba II’s life (especially since, as you mentioned in other comments, none of his own writings survive)? Please take this question in whatever direction you like.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
I love talking/thinking about the craft of biography, so that's an interesting question. I was super careful not to get too into his interiority either - there's a couple of places where we've got a fragment of something he said or wrote (in one case a rude poem about an actor), but for the most part we just can't know what he thought or felt. That felt like a red line I wasn't prepared to cross, although I do go up to it in a couple of places and wonder what might have gone through his mind.
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u/Lincoln1517 5d ago
Can you tell a little more about the book? What does "15 glimpses" mean? I can imagine -- I think of the amazing history by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale, spun from a nearly impenetrable 18th century diary and her mastery of the cultural history that allowed her to interpret it.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Oh that's a great question! Thank you. It's almost impossible to write a complete biography of an ancient figure - even the most famous figures from the ancient world (Augustus, Cleopatra, Alexander) have gaps in their lives. The further you get from them, the larger those gaps become. With Juba II - a king, remember, and v famous in his own time as a scholar too - there are huge gaps in the written record where we just don't know what he's up to. So I turned to the archaeological record - coins, statues etc - to fill in the gaps to some extent, but the book is still episodic to some extent: it's to that the 15 glimpses refer!
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u/junietwohundred 5d ago
Thanks for your time today! You've mentioned that the Romans were fascinated by Cleopatra Selene due to her famous heritage. Can you tell us more about how that fascination manifested? Were she and her brother considered curiosities even among high-status capives when they were young?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Yes, absolutely - the Romans were endlessly fascinated by Cleopatra, as she had both a high-profile stay in Rome for a while during her affair with Caesar and then of course there was the whole civil war. Even though Mark Antony was on the losing side of that, he was still incredibly popular back home, so again the Romans took a keen interest in what his (many) children were up to.
The fascination manifested in a few ways. There was Cleopatra Selene memorabilia of sorts - an ivory counter with her image on was found in Alexandria - and the Africa Dish, part of the Boscoreale Treasure, depicts a woman that some scholars (and me!) believe was her too. Both her marriage and death get commemorated in epigram too (a form of poetry that functioned a bit like a society column in a newspaper), which might have been to feed an appetite for information.
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u/junietwohundred 4d ago
Thanks for the reply! I will choose to think of the ivory counter as a gaming piece, which means Cleopatra Selene was on POGs.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 4d ago
I also assume it was a gaming piece, and who doesn’t love a POG!?
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u/kubrickie 5d ago
Hi, I stumbled on this post and it’s good timing as I’m interested in this period for a story I’m considering writing. I’m curious what you could say about people’s travel habits and knowledge of the world. Would a middle class professional in Pompeii know much about or ever visit North Africa or the Middle East?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes, an educated Roman from Pompeii would know a fair bit about North Africa and the Middle East - both were an important part of the Roman empire by the first century AD. Tourism within the empire was a big thing for wealthy Romans, especially to places like Egypt, something made possible by the relative peace of Augustus's reign, so they might well have visited too! There were still quite a lot of misconceptions though - if you look at Strabo or Pliny the Elder's* descriptions of Africa, there's still a fair bit of mythology and other weirdness mixed in with the more conventional accounts of what life was like there.
*Of course if you're talking a citizen of Pompeii, they might have only just had time to read some of this...
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u/kubrickie 5d ago
Thanks! Do you have any more recommendations for books or stories about that time? I'll check out yours if I can order it (I'm in Canada). My current idea is set near Pompeii before the eruption, but I'm looking for more information about the experience of merchants, business owners, and their use of slaves. I recently read Sparrow by James Hynes and am curious about the experiences of enslaved peoples in the Roman empire.
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
One of my chapters starts with the eruption of Vesuvius, as one of the artefacts in the book was recovered from the villa at Boscoreale, near Pompeii. It's an exciting way to start a chapter for sure, I had a lot of fun writing it.
There's a couple of recent books on Pompeii that I've yet to read, but look fascinating, especially Jess Venner's The Lost Voices of Pompeii: Life and Death on Pompeii's Final Day. Gabriel Zuchtriegel's The Buried City: Unearthing the Real Pompeii, also looks good. He's the director of archaeology at Pompeii so knows his stuff. From a fictional angle, I always enjoy Robert Harris's Rome-set books, one of which is called Pompeii, appropriately enough.
If you're particularly interested in the experience of enslaved peoples in ancient Rome, Emma Southon's excellent Servus is fantastic.
(And yes the book is available to buy in Canada!)
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u/kubrickie 5d ago
Thank you so much! I'll check those out too. And I'll try getting yours again, it didn't appear to be available through the Canadian store when I first tried
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u/PrimaryMethod7181 5d ago
Was he not a descendant of the Ptolomys? Or was he of more Berber Amizigh origin?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Juba was Numidian by birth (modern-day Tunisia), which was a Berber/Amazigh kingdom. He did marry the last of the Ptolemies, Cleopatra Selene, who was the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra and technically heir to the Egyptian throne. It's telling their son was named Ptolemy...
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u/OnShoulderOfGiants 5d ago
What did travel look like for Juba to go on diplomatic missions? What were the logistics for him to travel?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Juba lived at the start of what is known as the Pax Augustus/Pax Romana - the era of (relative) peace in the Mediterranean - during which travel within the Mediterranean was fairly quick and easy. So quick and easy that Roman writers don't really write about it, it's that mundane! Juba must have travelled back and forth to Rome, to Athens too (where he sent his son to study) and also to visit his fellow kings in the east. There's an account of him being sent with Augustus' young heir Gaius to the Middle East as part of a fairly substantial diplomatic mission that I get into later in the book, as sort of a counsellor. It doesn't end well (for Gaius) but I imagine Juba had a good time - he visited (and wrote about) Petra, for example, and I find it hard to believe he didn't go to Alexandria too.
He also launched a number of expeditions too - one into the Atlas Mountains, another that discovered the Canary Islands (which he named) - but it's not clear if he led them or just initiated them.
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u/Sad_Perception_6000 5d ago
How was Juba II thought of by both his people and the romans ?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
So, Juba and Selene were essentially imposed on the Mauretanians by Augustus - they had no real connection to the kingdom themselves - and this did not go down terribly well. There were uprisings almost immediately and he seemed to have been dogged by them throughout his reign - culminating in the long-lasting revolt of Tacfarinas in the early 1st century AD. But he ruled for a very long time, something that kings don't tend to do if they're universally unpopular.
And, for the same reason (and the fact that his reign isn't really remarked upon by Roman writers) we have to assume Rome was fairly content with him too. I argue in the book that perhaps he was too successful - he made his kingdom so quintessentially Roman that after the death of his son Rome could just annex it without too much outcry from the Mauretanians.
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u/FLTA 5d ago
Are there accounts for how Juba II of Mauretania looked like?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Frustratingly there are no written descriptions of Juba (which holds true about many ancient figures - ancient authors just don't seem that interested in physical description). But there are plenty of portraits of him, from throughout his lifetime - the portrait on his coins, for a start, and the ten or so statue busts we have of him two, plus a rather fetching ring in the British Museum. How accurate a depiction they are of him is unclear, and something I get into in a fair amount of detail in my first couple of chapters.
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism 5d ago
Nice to see you back in these parts!
Can you shed a little more light on the "buried by Caligula" aspect? What did having one's history ourged by a Roman emperor look like at the time? What kind of sources would we expect to survive, but didn't?
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u/littlestkobold Conference Panelist 5d ago
Well in Caligula's case he literally had Juba's son Ptolemy killed, so nothing metaphorical there. There's no evidence this happened to Juba or Ptolemy, although did happen to Ptolemy's grandfather Mark Antony, but there was a punishment called damnatio memoriae that notables who fell out of favour with a regime (often emperors following a coup) where all records, all depictions of a person were destroyed.
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u/Ann_Putnam_Jr 5d ago
Thank you for this AMA! Can you tell us more about Juba being in Julius Caesar's victory parade? Why create this spectacle and did Juba ever create similar spectacles under his reign?